Well, I’ve finally done it. I’ve got all the Trophies in Gran Turismo 7, or any PlayStation game, and I am happy. For the last couple of months I have been either working through challenges, racing online, or grinding to get money. I had three trophies to get when I thought a Platinum was within reach. I had to complete 50 races online, this was easy, just time and frustration at people trying to knock me off the track, but I completed the 50. I had to take 100 pictures using Scapes mode, this was time again especially as I didn’t just want to keep pressing the shutter button – I wanted most of the pictures to be a decent quality. The final trophy was to buy three absolute classic cars.
A Detailed Version Of My Actual Car In a Car Park – Taken within GT7
A Jaguar valued at 20,000,000 credits
A ford valued at around 5,000,000 credits
A Ferrari valued around 9,500,000 credits
These cars appear occasionally in some in-game dealership and so not only did I need the money to get them I also needed to keep checking the dealership to buy the car when they appeared. I think this has taken around a month. I managed to get the Jag and Ford easy enough but have spent the last two weeks waiting for the Ferrari. I also as orking hard to secure the 9,500,000 credits I needed. Part of me considered using actual real cash to buy some in-game credits but they are about GBP15 for 2,000,000 credits and so I asn’t going to spaff GBP60 or so real money on an in-game car. The grinding continued.
Yesterday morning I checked the game store and the Ferrari was in there. However for whatever reason was decided it now cost 20,000,000. I was a little gutted as I had already saved 9,500,000 for the original price. I decided that I could wait and then it struck me. I have loads of cars I don’t care about and so I sold some of the racing cars I own. This I did and very quickly made the required purchase price.
I now own a Platinum trophy in the cybers and I’m very happy. There’s still plenty of the game I have left to complete. I’ve got to get gold in all the new licences, win every standard race and then maybe compete a little online. Oh, there are also the challenges or mission things to do so I have plenty more things to be getting on with.
I’ve been playing Fortnite since about last October. I quite enjoy it, it’s not my favourite game but it is the only one I play where I get to interact with the family and run around killing things. I’ve played Navy Seals in the past and the online experience wasn’t great, especially if you’ve only just started playing online and don’t have all the time to get good at the game. Fortunately the Legend has guided me through Fortnite and I’ve got some kids who play better than me and carry me a lot. Here are the stats from the Fortnite game itself:
Fortnite Solo Stats
Fortnite Duo Stats
Fortnite Squads Stats
I get carried a LOT in squads. I think I’m most proud of the top 5 statistic in the Duos category. Considering a lot of the time the Legend and I are just driving around breaking things and generally having a bit of a giggle to get top 5 that much I think is impressive.
Fortnite Stats as percentages
The above table is all of the stats but percentaged for each category. I honestly have no idea if the percentages are good. Also, to be honest, I don’t care. The thing about these games is to have fun. Once you become too competitive I think it becomes less fun and more stressy. This is the main reason why I don’t play Gran Turismo online that much. There’s too much stress. Oh, I’ve just passed 800 hours on Minecraft – yes, I’ll take that applause, thank you.
I’ve always enjoyed playing computer/console type games. Ever since the classic Commodore 64 with Chuckie Egg and Manic Miner. So, here’s some of the recent games I am enjoying:
Fortnite
Minecraft
Gran Turismo
Minecraft Dungeons
X-Plane
I tend to have quite a bit of imposter syndrome so I think if I was asked I would say that I’m not a gamer. But then I have nearly 800 hours on Minecraft so maybe I am.
I was exploring the options within the PS5 menu and I noticed that the games I play get totalled up in terms of time played. I’m not sure if I was shocked or just pleased at the amount of time I have spent playing. I do know that it certainly justifies me spending the money on the hardware and infrastructure to experience these things.
PS5 screen capture showing amount of time played . . .
In case you can’t quite see the numbers in the above graphic let me write them down below. I just want to point out that the game could be a PS4 game that is played on the PS5 and register timewise as a PS4 time. Hence, while I tend to play Minecraft on the PS5 its total comes only from PS4 playtime.
Gran Turismo 7 – 120 hours
Fortnite – 111 hours
Minecraft – 722 hours
Now the Gran Turismo times clearly do not include all the time I have spent playing other versions. Let’s be clear. Gran Turismo is 25 years old this year and I’ve been playing it for that long. In terms of cost/benefit I think I’ve done very well.
Recently I’ve been persuaded to have a go at playing Fortnite. The last month has been an interesting time learning all the little ways that Epic Games manage to keep the interest within Fortnite. There are lots of challenges and quests that can be completed alongside the actual game of trying to kill everyone else. If you don’t know this game is based on Battle Royale – kill all the others until you are the only survivors. It’s actually pretty good fun and I have enjoyed learning things about the maps, the weapons and the gameplay.
Fortnite Levels – It’s Been About A Month
I never thought I’d be into different skins and customisations in a game. I’ve quite enjoyed putting liveries on Gran Turismo cars but not ones that I’ve had to work hard for, or even pay for. If it ain’t free I’m not having it. Except, I have done that in Fortnite. I’ve paid for a decent looking glider that I will try and embed in another communication – it’s loosely based on the Grumman Goose. I’ve also paid a little money for some rather cool looking skins, and they were in the sale so that’s probably OK? Anyway, I’m an adult and can spend my money on whatever I want I guess.
I’m currently at level 184 or something. The shiny skin I have in the image took a fair amount of play and even trying third party games which are generally quite shit. You get bonus XP for completing tasks and the XP goes to give you levels. I will admit, I am hooked, and with other people in my team we can regularly come in the top 5 on the island so I enjoy this game a lot.
So, Gran Turismo 7 was released last Friday. I’ve played some every day since and I’m starting to build up my licences and get a semi-decent collection of cars together. Clearly I’ll end up with about six or so cars that I tend to use mostly. These will be a mixture of FR, FF, 4WD, MR and a couple of race cars too. It’s been fun and frustration. When doing a licence test and you end up a few thousands too slow for gold and then you have to keep trying! I guess that’s part of the game.
Current GT7 Profile
At the moment there’s too much to do in GT7 and I’m trying to pace out my activities. I keep trying bits of pieces of the game each day and I’ve even tried the photo mode. I’m kinda skeptical about the photo mode. I’m not enough into cars I think to want to create the perfect photograph. That and there’s always racing to be getting on with. Maybe I’ll spend some time in a few months getting used to the livery editor and photo mode. I know they’ve made that a big part of the game but for me it’s the racing I enjoy.
Honda Integra in Cambridge
The above photograph is quite stunning in terms of the detail you can edit. If you look carefully you can see small amounts of dirt on the front of the bonnet of the car, this is optional. I could decide the dirt on the tyres and how much dust to have in the air to create that glowing effect. It is quite lovely. And I wasn’t even really trying that hard!
Druids at Brands Hatch
The above photograph was me having a go at the replay race mode photography. I had raced the Mustang around Brands Hatch and thought this overtake at Druids would make a good shot so during the replay I entered into photomode. Although I’ve got blurring on and created a panning shot the level of detail is quite stunning. Just look at the light reflecting off the cars! I drove a race recently at Deep Forest and it turned from daytime to night and the headlights of my car searching through the forest to find the track almost had me weeping with delight.
This is communication number 2018 and so here are some things that happened that year:
Russia murders double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK.
The world’s last male northern white rhinoceros dies in Kenya.
Saudi Arabia allows women to drive.
A tsunami hits the Sunda Strait, Indonesia, killing at least 430 people and injuring nearly 1,500.
It’s been just over a week that I’ve owned the PS5 and after the initial joy of cabling and getting it in place I have been messing with some of the settings to get the best experience. The good thing about modern appliances is that they can “see” what they are connected to and output the correct formats for whatever gear you have. So, the PS5 is outputting 7.2 sound into the amp. I did have a problem with the picture format though!
The Current Set Up
The above picture shows a real mix of technologies and brands. There’s a Logitech G29 steering wheel, an Nvidia Shield Pro, the Sony PS5, a Sony AV amp, a Sonos unit, some Bose speakers, the Philips TV, a Sony speaker and a Sony PS camera. I think it all works together pretty well and even if people freak out about it they should realise that audiophile types are rare and most people can’t hear or see the difference between many basic makes and low end cables! I used to think that expensive cables were a thing that could improve your experience, but the answer is “no” they do not. Most of my speakers are connected by quite think mains cable. There isn’t a need for expensive cables.
So, back to the picture output from the PS5. I tried selecting a 4K HDR output but the PS5 was adamant that the receiving device wouldn’t be able to handle this. The PS5 wanted to downgrade the signal to 1080P for HDR rather than 2160P. Well, if I have to choose resolution over HDR then it’s the resolution that’s going to win every time I reckon. Every couple of days over the last week I would remember this issue and I played with the TV settings trying to find the magic button that would clear the way for these signals. I was pretty sure that 4k HDR was possible on the television. I couldn’t find the correct combination of settings.
I once again tried messing around in the PS5 settings to see if there was a thing I could do to fix this. I even bypassed the PSVR thinking there might be a thing inside that unit that meant it couldn’t bypass a 4k HDR signal. I also tried plugging the PS5 directly into the television but this didn’t change anything – I am aware now that this is because only one of the HDMI inputs to the TV is really set up for the best quality signal. I tried googling again and found a Forbes page which looked promising. The page suggests setting an input device to “enhanced”. This seemed like some kind of BladeRunner reference but I decided to go ahead and see if I could find this setting. Then, I remembered the AV Amp.
Why an amp needs to have a HDMI throughput setting set to “enhanced” I am not sure. But there it was, in the amp settings. The option to allow the HDMI bypass to be set to “enhanced”. I switched this. Then I restarted all the devices, because it seemed sensible to do so. I headed over to the PS5 and it was in “screen set up” mode. It wanted me to set up screen size and some HDR settings. I was reasonably excited and once the settings were made the PS5 is now outputting 4k HDR. It took a week of not-really-worrying about it but also knowing in the back of my mind that I could improve the look of the games.
I will say that once I’m engrossed in playing a game I don’t really concentrate on what the graphics look like. I don’t really notice the little details. It’s something I’ve always been conscious of. It’s the gameplay that makes the difference for me as a player. I know there a people out there who quite like just watching games and I understand that the graphics can really make a difference to them, but, for me, if the game play is good enough then you don’t really notice the rest of it?
This is communication number 2003 and so here are some things that happened in that year:
Space Shuttle Columbia breaks up over Texas.
Massive protests against an illegal war in Iraq. Governments do not listen. This is the start of my realisation that governments do what they want, not what we want.
Two people [not Musk] start Telsa.
China launches people into space for the first time.
I had been saving a few items for this communication and this is going to be a rambler rather than focussed on particular issues. I guess this could be considered my christmas newsletter to the world if you think I care enough about you – actually to the ten people who look at this site I do care. So, what sort of things have been happening?
I’ve recorded a couple of videos for YouTube showing me landing in two New Zealand airports. I’m currently there in my journey around the world and my biggest “problem” is deciding whether to island hop across the Pacific to South America or to head up the ring of fire to Japan and then cross the Bering Straits. I need to look into the range of my T-7 EFT and go from there.
I just had a look on YouTube and I hadn’t uploaded the second video, I shall attempt to do that a little later. I’ve got some music file management to do first because I had helped Kickstarter an album by the artist Faderhead. Their music hits my sweet spot and so I was happy to chuck some money towards his project. I get my name in the thanks in the CD notes.
I’ve reinstalled Twitter onto my phone, not sure why, but I think I have a slightly healthier relationship with that dark place than previously. It’s also nice to see what Cornish Pom is tweeting about.
Just over a week ago, Friday 17 December, I was chatting to one of my work colleagues and they said that they had a PS5. I don’t think I was aware of this and so I acted surprised. The person then told me that to get it they had just kept checking a couple of large UK suppliers websites a few times a week and one day there was stock, so he bought it, drove to a nearby town and owned a PS5. I was slightly surprised this method worked as I had envisioned having to keep checking stock level tweets and getting in long queues in different shops. Just for a giggle that evening I looked on the Currys PC World website and it said they had two bundles in stock! I clicked order and they confirmed that the devices would be delivered on the Thursday [23rd December]. This seemed nice as it would be a christmas present and also a 50th birthday present for me [it’s coming up].
I then keep getting emails from the delivery company saying the delivery date is being brought forward and eventually they deliver it on the Sunday! Just two days later. I was super pleased. I then spent about an hour organising AV corner in the lounge to make sure that it fit.
Early Christmas
I’ve finally decided to remove the Blu-Ray player from AV corner. It doesn’t get used and on the very odd occasion when I do want to watch a disc I can use the PS5. The PS4 is removed because the PS5 is backwards compatible, so the 4 isn’t needed. I haven’t decided what to do with it yet. I currently have in my possession a PS3 [at work], a PS4 in a cupboard and the PS5 being used. I thought about taking the PS4 into work but the steering wheel isn’t compatible and I’m not getting another one just so I can keep the RACE club going on better hardware.
PS5 in its new home
AV Corner has a 7.1 amp, Nvidia Shield Pro, PS5 and PSVR. There are a couple of cooling fans there to force the airflow as the corner is stuffy and doesn’t really allow for convection. The new system looks good and the PS5 is pretty darn amazing. I’m really impressed with the DualSense controllers. The force feedback on the L2 and R2 triggers is really impressive.
So we now arrive at the lovely xmas present the world decided to give me and that’s Covid. I tested positive the other day. Had a PCR and just waiting for those results. But, given the specificity of the LFD tests, there isn’t really any doubt. I had expected to get it at some point but I would have been happier if it was when I was meant to be at work and not during the holiday season. I felt like shit yesterday and today is better but every joint aches and I can’t regulate my body temperature. Guess I’ll just lie on the sofa and watch a load of shit all day.
Early on in this pandemic that is fucking the world I started playing Minecraft pretty much so I could engage in conversations with my kids and understand a little about the world they were obsessed with. I still don’t know everything but I know what I like and enjoy and so I’ve been building. It gave me purpose. I hated it at times, having to head off to the farm to get wool or go and get supplies so I can make concrete. I considered making a squid farm at one point, but just changed my design to have less black concrete. I quite liked the process of building a thing and then changing my mind about what I wanted to to look like or how to complete a particular section. I would often think about what to do while I was running or working.
I haven’t done everything I want. There are things I kept thinking about that I could make to increase the complexity of the build and make it look even better. I wanted exhaust tubes to be built heading from the base of the launchpad up to the ground level around 100 blocks away and these would have smoke constantly pouring out of them to look as though the rocket was taking off. I wanted to build a launch control centre like the one at Kennedy for the Apollo launches but I only have so much time and there are other things I like doing. I’m not a complete obsessive!
Once I had done enough – I don’t think I should say finished – I tried to figure out the best way to save this build for posterity. I have the world save files backed up and stored on a NAS and in the cloud. But I wanted to be able to show this off I guess so I looked into making a YouTube walkthrough. Now, I have some rules about this website and I decided I should have rules about the videos. I wasn’t going to feature my ugly face, but I decided I would in the end. I have an opening title card – ha ha, created in MS Paint – yes it looks cheap but these are my first videos. Not sure what I’ll do next. I’ve been really impressed with the video recording software and I found it very intuitive. So, here is the first in the series, Episode 1 of Megaship 3000.
It turns out I can talk much better if I have wine and it amuses me how stilted and staccato my opening words are. I think I relax a little once I get going and know what to talk about. Many, many thanks to Penguin for giving me feedback on the first few attempts at a video and I would also like to thank the penguin chicks for their advice which, as seasoned YouTube watchers, was really good. I guess it’s now time to publicise my efforts and think about a release schedule! There are eight episodes in all and I guess, one day, I might do this again.
I’ve found a website which looks through all your GT Sport data and makes in nice and clear. I’m not sure what this means. I’m not sure if I want this much detail but I am sure it’s cool. There are a couple of sites that do this:
Both of the above sites should link to my profile on those pages. This is what I have foiund so far:
My GT Sport Stats
I’ve only driven 35,409km. I think I probably need to get that increased. I’m also concerned about my driver rating, below, but what I can do about it I’m not sure.
My Driver Rating Within GT Sport
I guess I just have to keep plugging away at this in between bouts of Minecraft building.
I had a blast on Gran Turismo Sport recently. I had noticed an update and they added a the Toyota Yaris. I bought that and went for a spin around the Dragon Trail circuit and it was a good fun car to drive even if on Group N300. I wanted more and so went to race online. There was a Gr. 2 race on at Alsace and so I entered that, this would be my fourth race at that circuit. The first was in my Mazda and the tendency to oversteer on the exit of a few of the corners made me a little too slow, so I tested a Beetle and it worked well. This video is me actually winning a race, more by luck than skill as everyone else seemed to have problems, but it’s still a win.
I’ve got a slightly better version if you can’t get to Twitter.
Beach House View
While the structure I am standing on remains top secret I can talk you through what you can see. The green rectangle in the lower left area is my redstone testing area, it’s where I go to practice or test out builds before taking them to their proper installation place. Directly above this in the picture is Beach Station which is just visible but is made of glass and green concrete so it is quite well hidden. The lump of red in the sea is my nether portal. The monolith of obsidian is a monolith of obsidian. Below the red nether portal is a clump of trees with my beach house hidden just behind them. The small wooden structure in a lagoon is the beach bar and above that is my wood farm with height restriction.
Keep a look out for news and maybe a video of the monster build I’m currently working on. I’m currently trying to decide whether to have an external block on the latest layer and I am not quite sure – maybe it should be glass?
At the beginning of the national lockdown I went out for daily exercises with the kids and they talked constantly about Minecraft and I just nodded along. Then, I decided to join in and at least understand what they were talking about. Now, about half a year later, I still don’t always understand what they are talking about but I do at least get some of it. Our second world is progressing well and the luxury now is that we’ve conquered farming and so are able to devote time to “projects”.
I will confess that I have been using a map application to help with guided mining. While cheating I don’t think this is the worst cheat. I also started showing coordinates on screen which feels a little like cheating, but, not the worst as far as I’m concerned. Recently there have been nether tunnels made to progress around the world faster than my minecart railway from the Meadow to the Beach.
A while back I introduced the world to the HOLE via my YouTube channel. I don’t think I wrote about it on these informative pages but I didn’t really have much of an idea what to do. I think the HOLE took about two weeks to dig playing one to two hours a day. Two hours is my limit before I start getting restless.
The bottom of the HOLE is now layered with glass, there are torches placed at the lowest bedrock level and I have also filled a layer of water at the moment to save me dying if I fall into the HOLE. I might or might not remove the water, I’m not sure yet.
I have started a build project in the HOLE. It is going to take some time. So far I think I have spent about a week on it, playing for one to two hours per day. There are a few issues. The main one is resources. After building for a session I am generally out of particular resources and have to spend the next session building those resources up again. It does give me a break from the project I guess and allows me to think about how to design the next stage. The lowest level of the build was almost done as a proof of concept and it looked so good that I decided to carry on. After about a week of building the whole project started to take shape in my head and I now have most of it loosely planned. I know what I am going to do, it’s just a matter of getting the resources and doing the building.
I guess there will be a grand reveal here and on YouTube. I expect this project to take another two weeks to complete the main section of the build. I think it’ll be another couple of weeks after that to build the extras – such as minecart tracks and redstone components. So, given delays and that a national lockdown seems unlikely, this project looks set to last another month. I can’t wait to show people around the project. I will have to come up with some name for it.
Perhaps as I get older I become less tolerant? I honestly don’t think that’s true. The more I learn about people and the world I am more accepting of the differences between us all. Except hate. I think I expect everyone to be as tolerant as me when I know a lot aren’t. For once, the golden rule applies pretty well: be nice. This should be followed by one of my mum’s favourite sayings which was: if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all. I do believe you are allowed to think whatever you want but your actions should always follow the golden rule. What I’m trying to say is, this communication might not be as bad as I think, some of you might look at it and shrug, I just found the subject in poor taste.
I was playing Gran Turismo Sport yesterday and racing online. The races this week are GT3 cars around the Red Bull Ring in Austria. It’s a pretty fast track with some corners that really require you to cope with understeer with plenty of downhill braking and off camber. There’s also two corners where early power on the exit will have you over-steering. I’m not sure it’s a favourite but it is a good challenge.
Corners 1 and 2 require gentle power on exit, definitely avoid the kerb on the inside and maybe short-shift to avoid oversteer. Corner 3 has downhill braking and is tighter than you think, everytime!
Anyway, when the entry list came up on the screen I was a little [not shocked] bothered by two of the PSN names that people had chosen. Now, I often have to remind myself that it is likely that most players are not as old as me and most haven’t been playing as long as I have. You can tell by my PSN name, Kertz, that I got in early when selecting usernames. It’s like my personal email address which is just my name and zero numbers, being an early adopter has its uses sometimes. Here’s the entry list:
Playstation Network Names
Maybe people think it’s a giggle to have a funny name? I’ve seen plenty with 69 in the number. Qualifying in second place is Jack-T-Ripper1. The addition of the 1 is curious and might mean that Jack-T-Ripper was already taken? I’m not sure it’s a good thing to have your PlayStation identity the same as a serial killer of women, maybe it shows a deep lack of respect? Maybe it’s a laugh and I just don’t get it? If I think about some of the lyrics to songs I like then naming yourself Jack The Ripper isn’t that bad. Oh dear, maybe I’m old.
Then, qualifying in 11th place is a certain Wernher_V2_Braun. For me this is more worrying but again, maybe I’m just being a little sensitive. This Dutch player has taken a name based on a user of slave labour in the second world war. Yes, Von Braun created the technology to launch the American space programme but he also used slave labour in his factories. I do not know whether he had Nazi ideologies but he is a very complex character. For me, the fact that the Dutch player included the V2 as part of their name is the most disturbing part. They could have had F1 which was the engine that took man to the moon, but no, they chose the Nazi ballistic missile called the V2, as though they are paying homage to that programme.
As much as how we present ourselves shouldn’t change the opinions people form of us, it is what they do. The human brain makes judgements really quickly and it’s hard to get away from that. Does it matter whether I wear a suit or not? Does that really affect my ability to perform my job? No. Should I wear a suit? I don’t think so, but the image creates a power. It’s why we have uniforms for those in positions of implied power. So, are these two people assholes? I don’t know. I would like to think they are not, but if you think it’s OK to name yourself after a serial killer or a man responsible for the deaths of thousands with allusions to those deaths then perhaps you shouldn’t be advertising your thoughts. Maybe this is a case of internet-balls. I don’t know. I honestly believe you should be able to think what you want, but externally you should be nice. I think I find these identities distasteful while at the same time thinking I’m wrong for thinking that. Argh, conflicted.
This was an omission I had to correct. So, I did. I went and built a monolith at the Beach House but it looked too small. 1 x 4 x 9 didn’t really work that well so I doubled it. You have to keep the correct ratios and here it is:
Monolith and Portal
It’s a 2 x 8 x 18 which is a lot of obsidian that I had to make down in one of my mines. I have perfected my lava quenching techniques though! I think it looks good just floating in the air and although I touched it while building the thing I won’t be going near it, just in case.
TMA 2, Portal and the Beach House
This view has all the important bits of this end of the world. My beach house, the portal and the monolith. There’s also the remains of a tower showing top centre which was to indicate the way back – I’ve since got rid of most of it!
Monolith and Portal
I’m currently working on a *secret project* and there will be another video released soon showing the Empire. I’m not expanding the area but I’m tidying up some of the impact of building in the meadow area. Ultimately I would like to continue the *secret project* to the rest of the Empire but I think that would be too tedious. I have other things I want to do, like learn redstone and also get a shulker box and beacon.
It’s been a little while since I wrote on here but in all honesty I’ve been struggling to find things to write about. You see, nothing’s happening. We are in this lockdown and work is odd at the moment. I have been in to work three times since 17 March. Those three times were supervising and not doing my real job but at least it was somewhere else to be. I’m in a couple of times over the next week and that might be more interesting. Working at home places really interesting pressures and thoughts on you. I keep trying to manage engagement with the time that I have. I’ve also spent time in a better world, my Minecraft world. Even though there are creepers and zombies and witches and I died in that world a few days ago, it’s a far more enjoyable place than the real world at the moment.
Each day I try and have two races on Gran Turismo. Sometimes I’m not in the mood but mostly I am. It’s a nice half hour distraction from the world and it can be really enjoyable. The issues with racing online still exist and the idea that you will lose because someone else is entirely incompetent is annoying but normally it’s worth it. Of the current daily races I have enjoyed racing around the Mount Panorama circuit at Bathurst. I’ll probably write a little about my favourite cars sometime soon as I noticed I’d completed over 3000miles in my Mazda! That’s more than some people drive in the real world in a year.
Anyway, in a race yesterday I started in second position. My time of around 2’07” is pretty good but the person on pole had 2’05” and I’ve no idea how they got that. I’m not convinced I’ve really hooked together a complete decent lap but to lose a further two seconds from my time would be hard work. Also, I suspect there are people out there even faster. It looks as though GT matches you with people of a similar ability and time so I don’t know what the fastest time in the world is. Mind you, I guess there are people playing a lot more than me. I know I’ve been playing from 1997 ish but to get loads better at these circuits you just need to get practising.
For whatever reason at the start of the race yesterday the person in pole didn’t accelerate at the start and I zoomed past them. I was in the lead from the first corner and didn’t look back. Well, I did, I used my mirrors to see what was behind me but you know what I mean. The thing about being in the lead is that there’s a lot more to lose if you stack it going into a corner so it does make me more hesitant and cautious on corner entrances and exits. This can cost time and so I have to monitor the gap to the car behind. For this race it was around 1.8 seconds for the whole race and only moved by a few tenths. I sometimes get an adrenaline build up on the last lap as I get excited about winning. This time I calmed that and kept telling myself to keep a clean lap and remember where I tend to oversteer on the exit of corners when I put the power down early. Mount Panorama is a glorious circuit and very tricky, the section at the top of the mountain is horrible and fantastic at the same time.
Below is a screen video clip of the final positions along with my “win” celebrations and the delivery of my daily workout car. If you complete 26.6 miles in a day you get a free car. Most of these I don’t use. There are around 500 cars in the garage and I’m not fussed by them.
I’m pretty sure this was my first ever fastest lap in a race. I’m very happy with that. I don’t know what lap times other people got but it doesn’t matter. I was out in front with a clear road and that does make it a lot easier. You don’t have to judge what other people are going to do and brake slightly early because of the concertina effect. You can pretty much put down qualifying laps, just while hoping that you don’t get nudged or whacked by someone forgetting to break, or by someone who is just an asshole.
I am quite convinced that the physics of the car is different in the race compared to qualifying and I’m not sure why. I get a little more understeer during races and I suspect, but do not know, that it’s due to the air modelling the game does. Driving a car through mostly still air is very different to driving through disturbed air and I have noticed a very minor difference in steering and braking while racing in the pack with other cars around. There is a definite effect and the car doesn’t behave as it does on qualifying. It’s something I think I need to investigate.
I recently finished all of the Gran Turismo Sport races that exist in Campaign mode. It’s taken quite a while but I am done. It was a little sad to finish but now it means that to get my fix I’ll need to start using the online racing mode a bit more. I’ve not enjoyed this in the past as some drivers out there are dicks. However, my recent experiences show that if you pick the longer / harder races you tend to get people who are quite good at racing and it seems to work quite well. I won my second race ever recently and it was a good feeling but I forgot to save the replay and I was gutted about that.
I did however recently complete a race and made a decent run of it to gain about seven places. Only a couple of these were overtakes, the rest was gaining places when other driver ran wide! I was racing in my Porsche which I like but for this race the gearing is set quite low so I only use about four gears and many of the corners are done in low revs, which is good for reducing over steer and makes getting the torque on a little easier.
Yes, that’s my gloriously bright and shiny green Porsche. It probably has an advert for this website on it!
Gran Turismo Sport recently updated and added the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium to the roster of tracks. I’m looking forward to some of the originals coming back such as:
High Speed Ring
Grand Valley Speedway
Autumn Ring
Trial Mountain
Deep Forest Raceway
All of these circuits were great fun and hopefully they’ll appear. I’d even play them in low-definition just to have the opportunity to race those corners again.
I was shaky at Spa at first, but I’m getting the hang of the circuit and I think I’ll keep improving bit by bit. I’ve played a few time trials using my favourite cars and then I uploaded the saved video to my YouTube channel.
The following is in my shiny Porsche.
Here are the times I’ve got for Spa so far along with my “branded” cars.
Nissan GT-R
Porsche Cayman GT4
I’ve been to Spa twice. My first time was in October 2003 about a month after I bought my third motorbike, called Steph. There were/are rules about naming of motorcycles which may or may not have been explained in these communications. Here’s a photograph of Steph loaded up in full touring gear on the Eurotunnel train heading under the channel.
Over the weekend I tried something out not because I wanted to but really just because I should have been able to do it. While I was at RAF Wittering I spent some time on the Playstation remote play feature just really checking that it would work. As I’d been feeling remote recently through stress and poor sleep I didn’t spend a great deal of time playing [in fact I practised some statistics] but I did confirm that I can play the Playstation when I have a wifi signal.
While on military bases I either use the wifi provided by BT on some bases or, on others, there is a private contractor service called Media Force. In my experience they provide excellent coverage [except in my room at Shawbury] and for £10 you can get a week’s worth of 24Mb/s connection.
The Media Force connection at Wittering was enough to get my PS4 working remotely via my laptop:
Remote Play
I only played a very arcade type game as I didn’t really have the time to get into a specific game. But, I proved the system worked. For the PC version you connect a Dualshock4 via a USB cable. This system worked well.
I then tested the system on my phone. It’s an Apple iPhone running iOS13+. I apologise for the crappy picture because I was using my laptop to take the photograph and both of its cameras point rearwards [towards the user].
Remote Play iOS 13 and Dualshock 4
In this setup the Dualshock4 is connected via BlueTooth which is pretty cool. You just have to re-pair the controller with your PS4 when you get home. I’ll definitely be using this system more in the future!
First communication for the new year of 2019 is a couple of pictures from Gran Turismo photographic mode. The first is my Chevvy over-steering around the penultimate bend on the Sainte-Croix Circuit. You can see a list of circuits here.
Chevrolet
This second picture is of my two favourite cars on GT Sport. Both have a really good balanced feel and I’ve raced over 500 miles in the Porsche.
